Strict Machine
by iiskaa
Summary: Late addition to the LJ song meme. 10 drabbles, G1, mostly slash, various pairings.


Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Song meme. I know I'm way late jumping on this, but: _Put your music collection on shuffle, write for the duration of each song, etc._

These are as-written, which is to say mostly unfinished, but also: (1) Although I wrote it as "female," Teletraan 1 had a male voice in the cartoon. (2) Two songs are listed for the 10th drabble because I didn't notice the song change until about a minute into the second one. They're similar-sounding electronic tracks.

**1. Exilio - Thievery Corporation**

**-Jazz/Prowl-**

Much as he loved Prowl, the mech had no groove. Frowned and tetched when Jazz tried to pull him away from his datapads with a dirty suggestion whispered in his audio pick-up and a dirtier swing of his hips. Just never understood the pull of the music, of the pulsing beat, of naked, electric rhythm.

Jazz made it his priority to fix this fault.

And straddling Prowl's lap, grinding and gyrating for all he was worth to music every bit as dirty as the dirtiest suggestion he'd ever whispered, he grinned an even dirtier grin when he felt Prowl - _finally_ - start to give.

A soft gasp, the tentative press of fingertips, a little quiver.

A very little quiver.

It was a start.

**2. I Try - Gnarls Barkley**

**-Optimus Prime/Starscream-**

Dust kicked up under his wheels at his approach, trees and boulders, a flash of white. Then more: finger and wing tips resolving out of darkness. Easy stance, ghost of a smile so needlessly generous it made him want to cry.

Why his enemy, of all people, and _this_ enemy, should be the only one who could make Optimus forget the part of himself that was Prime, he never dared question. It was little enough to be able to slip out of the Ark and away from impossible responsibility, to leave the spark-crushing weight of leadership, to forget the war itself for a few joors at a time, and then, only ever under cover of night, and in secret.

He transformed and dropped to his knees at Starscream's feet in a single motion, arms wrapping thighs, and felt hands on his faceplate, stroking. "Shh. Relax," and it was what he needed, always exactly what he needed...

**3. Until Morning - Thievery Corporation**

**-Skyfire/Starscream-**

"Can't you stay?"

"I shouldn't. What would I say if someone saw me coming in at shift change...?"

"Just once, Starscream? Just until sunrise?" _Please._

Dark face cast in shadows, Skyfire barely caught the quick downward turn of his lips, the red optics flickering in indecision, but then Skyfire's arms wrapped around him, and he felt Starscream yield. Couldn't help but smile when his lover let himself be pushed to the ground, when he turned back-to-front against Skyfire's cockpit, grumbling sleepily.

"Just once. If I get slagged when I go back, it's your fault."

"Thank you," he whispered, pressing a kiss to the Seeker's helm, wishing the morning never had to come.

**4. Infiltrate - Sean Paul**

**-Frenzy/Teletraan I-**

The Nemesis, half past midnight, local. Skeleton crew on night shift, bridge dark and quiet, which suited Frenzy perfectly. Powered up a terminal, typed in the hacked codes, quivering. It wasn't hard for him to slip into Teletraan 1. She opened for him like a Kaonite whore, eager and willing and reaching.

"Show me something, baby," he muttered, fingers dancing over the keyboard, optics glued to the screen.

Teletraan obliged, leading him through labyrinths of directories, granting access to her security feeds.

/Autobot head of Special Ops's mouth forming words without sound, legs splayed and that black-and-white 2IC's face buried between them/

/Security officer cuffed to the bars of a cell in his own brig, arching against nothing until the space in front of him shifted, and a smaller blue mech materialized, grinning/

/Optimus Prime, hands rubbing all over himself/

"Ooh, baby." She shivered with him. He could feel it through the data link.

**5. Strict Machine - Goldfrapp**

**-Carly/Spike, Carly/Autobots-**

He liked her and he meant well, but god, it was all she could do not to shudder when he touched her with those grubby hands, when he whispered awe into wet-lipped kisses, when he fumbled at her clothes, his expression silently pleading. She could tolerate it because he was near them, because he was her way in. She needed him. But when he reached for her, she would close her eyes and think of machines.

She'd think of electron-blue optics, glowing. Of racing at break-neck speed. Of sharp lines in smooth metal, revving engines and the smell of axle grease.

**6. Don't Cry Out - Shiny Toy Guns**

**-Starscream/Skyfire-**

"Skyfire," came the surprised whisper behind him, and in the astrosecond it took him to remember, it made his core wrench in relief. Even as he turned and saw the half-raised null ray, it was hard to shake that relief. Then Starscream's face hardened, and he aimed his weapon at Skyfire's spark.

"Don't move."

"Starscream," he sighed, and took a step forward.

Explosions and shouting, still no order on either side to retreat. Cracked pavement beneath them. Rising on either side, the corrugated walls of the buildings he'd taken cover between.

"I said _don't move_. I swear I'll blast you straight to the Pit."

"If you'd wanted to kill me, you would have taken the shot already," he said, stepping closer. Starscream's arm wavered, just barely. "You don't want to kill me." Another step. "Why are we doing this?"

Muzzle of Starscream's null ray bumped his cockpit...

**7. Little Razorblade - Pink Spiders**

**-Hound/Mirage-**

Fingers trail the lines of his plating, body far less refined in build than that of his lover, and he knows, on the deepest coded level, that Mirage does not love him. Idly imagines, even, while Mirage's lips follow the path marked out by his fingers, that he holds him in a measure of contempt.

If they weren't on an alien planet and at war, maybe, if he didn't risk permanent deactivation every time he rolled out of the Ark, it might make his spark ache.

Because what he feels in his spark when Mirage's lips trace his jaw, his nose, but never kiss him - that isn't hurt. It can't be, because he wouldn't let himself get hurt by a mech who doesn't love him, and he swears to himself that he doesn't love Mirage any more than Mirage does him.

**8. The Criminal Inside Me - R.L. Burnside**

**-TC/Skywarp-**

There were lips on his, on him, doing things... Where was he? Back against a tree, just barely within sensor range of a scatter of familiar electromagnetic fields. The lips belonged to Skywarp. They were paired with hands, plucking at his wings the way only a fellow jet would know how to do, hips flush against his, a knee jammed between his legs, rubbing unsubtly.

He was scrap-faced drunk. Remembered energon cubes, and Megatron babbling something about old Cybertron.

"What're we doing?"

Just as slagged as he was, Skywarp paused long enough to leer at him.

Then dug his fingers into an armor gap in his groin.

Question answered, he braced himself, gripping his wing mate's shoulders, shut his optics off, and keened.

**9. Forgot to be Your Lover - Jaheim**

**-Prowl/Jazz-**

"You were flirting with him."

"No I wasn't!"

"Come on, Jazz, his hands were all over you - "

"He was drunk, what was I supposed to - "

" - and you were encouraging it!"

"Well maybe if you weren't always too slagging busy to put _your_ hands all over me - "

Prowl shuttered his optics and let Jazz's voice wash over him, the shape and color of the words, but stopped listening because every angry, hurt recrimination Jazz would throw at him he'd heard dozens of times before. Had to fight down the sick feeling because they weren't suited to each other and he knew it. _Primus_ he was crazy for the other mech, but it wasn't working, it was a losing battle, they just didn't _fit_.

A light touch on his face startled him from this train of thought.

" - love me?"

_What?_ He re-focused his optics on Jazz, who was now looking at him intently. "I need to hear you say it. Please, Prowl. Do you still love me?"

"Yes. Yes, I love you." Of course he did. But that wasn't enough, was it? And maybe, someday, one of them would be strong enough to admit it.

**10. Variation on a Freight Theme - DJ Spooky vs. Freight Elevator Quartet/Airbrushed (Clogged) - Delarosa and Asora**

**-Soundwave(/Megatron)-**

Hunched over his communications console, military frequencies monitored with only a fraction of his attention, another three-quarter-dozen undedicated channels reaching out into the ether without aim, and he eavesdropped on nothing.

He would listen not to cell phone conversations bounced off satellites or the crisp-voiced broadcasts relayed across the waves, but to the in-between frequencies - cultural detritus, radio-static overlaid with disjointed, cracking words and scraps of melody, filament-thin and meaningless.

"Eh," Megatron had winced, once, after patching in briefly, and glared across the control room at him, "You could find some half-tolerable music, at least," and he'd stared, motionless and pacific, cacophony of white noise crackling over multiple bands of his hearing...


End file.
